prayermaker
by witchfingers
Summary: in the morning, she is to die. /AU, set in Ancient Mayan Mesoamerica./


_"Mayan priests ("prayermakers", among other names) are chiefly cultic functionaries operating within a well-defined hierarchy and offering food, sacrifices and prayers to the deities on behalf of social groups situated on different levels"_

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**prayermaker**

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in the morning, she is to die.

she was brought with her head lowered and crowned in flowers of the jungle, scintillating with the beauty of the foreigners of the east and solemn with the pride of the defeated; her body trembles, but her exotic eyes are unwavering.

she was brought after the battle by two slaves on a platform of gold like the kings and the noblemen; and now, with the sun bleeding behind the green peaks in the distance and the thick cloudy rainforest around the city; with the quetzal singing and the peoples bustling about down by the streets, now, she sits like a goddess and waits.

.

The temple is empty except for the high priest. He kneels by the great statue of Kukulkán and breathes in the scents of incense and flowers, and prays for the rain to come, and the war to come to an end.

The number of steps that lead from the temple down to the city is sacred and as thus it is secret, but the chambers rise so high above the houses that sometimes the air is foggy with cloud.

It is said that it is then when the gods talk to mankind. Today, though, the air is dry and the silence is heavy, and the high priest thinks it has been so long since the rain he might have forgotten how to pray.

The woman that will be sacrificed in the morning sits on the first steps and looks out to the jungle, bound by the invisible chains that tighten around her for the safety of her people that live so far beyond the green mountains. They would keep their pride in their defeat if they offered a sacrifice to the stranger gods of their conquerors, and they could, and they did,

so now she sits on the first stone steps and waits for the night to come and go from Xibalbá.

.

The high priest brings her water and flowers and fruits when it is time to light the Two Great Torches of the temple, but she won't eat. He sits down next to her and takes a bright colored passionfruit, cuts it, eats a bit himself.

He offers her a bite, but no conversation. She takes it, tells him nothing, but notices his eyes that are exotic, like hers. She wants to ask him, but when the constellation of the serpent is high up in the sky, still she's not said anything to him and he won't move, only look at the sky and the black mountains beyond/below with her.

An understanding comes to pass.

He feels her spirit strong pulsating beneath the regal clothing they dressed her in, and past the exterior beauty that is always only a shell.

'It pains me to think you will be dying,' he finds himself saying.

A slight smile flickers in her lips like the glow of a firefly.

'We will all die, but we don't grieve for it every day.'

He knows she is right, but he doesn't like her words.

'The air is so fragrant tonight,' she says. And it is. It smells like jungle, orchids, and rain to come.

.

It is about to be late when his hand reaches out for her to take it and they stand up, and against the mossy stones of the temple, they talk and kiss and defy the darkness.

Because life always comes to pass, but before it unravels it is woven out of evanescent moments that flicker light and dark, like a firefly.

Thunder cracks, lightning falls, the city below the temple gleams silver for a second too brief, and he holds her.

Her skin gleams silver too, when lightning falls again.

.

Were not her eyes too foreign?

The god of dawn opens an eye over the rainforest and everything glimmers golden: it's the drying raindrops reflecting the morning sun like myriads of precious stones.

The bats flutter back to their murky caves wrapped in canopy and folk lore, and the high priest feels in his arms the stirring of a creature that is alive.

But they stir awake and they hear them come; and they are coming.

The number of the steps that lead up to the chambers of the temple is sacred, and thus secret, but he counts each one of them with the thought of her in his mind and her name he ignores in his lips, and her lithe form in his grasp,

and they are coming.

.

They wear the thousand colors of the macaw and they talk to him; dignataries, noblemen, laymen and priests like him.

'The rain is come, like a miracle,' he says, and they listen.

'This woman is not a sacrifice. She is a goddess. A speaker of Kukulkán,' he says.

And they listen because he is a wise priest, and they don't think he speaks like a man that is only a man.

And they believe him.

And they leave.

.

Come the next morning, she might be gone again, like a butterfly or a thought or a prayer. She has a people and a home beyond the green mountains; a creed and a family, but not a lover, or so she tells him. And though the people in the houses below call her the goddess of the blue eyes, that speaks for the serpent Kukulkán and brought the rain, she tells him in a whisper that he can have her name, in case he feels he may forget her, but only if he'll keep it secret.

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**A/N**

I like mizushipping a lot, I thought I'd give it a try in an AU setting.

I did my research, too.

Kukulkán: The plumed serpent. A Mayan aspect of the Mesoamerican traditional God Quetzalcoatl. Among other things, it had influence over rains, storms, etc.

Xibalbá: "place of fear",[1] is the name of the underworld in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. (I bet there lived the Mayan version of Zork xD)

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Drop me a line or two to let me know what you think!


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